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QMI Agency

Feb 16, 2014

, Last Updated: 8:39 PM ET

Wealthy Chinese are moving to the U.S. and Europe because Canada has been scaling back entry, the South China Morning Post reported Sunday.

The story about the shifting preferences of Chinese millionaires came in the wake of Canada scrapping its investor visa scheme which has allowed waves of rich Chinese to move here since 1986. The announcement was made in last week’s budget.

"For decades, [the investor scheme] has significantly undervalued Canadian permanent residence, providing a pathway to Canadian citizenship in exchange for a guaranteed loan that is significantly less than our peer countries require," Jim Flaherty said.

The paper says nearly 46,000 mainland applications for visas will not be processed and applicants will have their fees refunded.

"I think I made a good choice," Hu Xiaofeng, a banker who obtained permanent residency in the U.S. last year through an investment program, told the South China Morning Post. "I wanted to move to Canada, but my agent told me the process was more complicated and the chances of obtaining Canadian residency status were slim."

The U.S. has been promoting its investor scheme in China and allows foreigners to invest a minimum of US $500,000 in exchange for a green card, the paper says. European countries have also become more popular destinations by providing incentives to attract investment from rich Chinese.

Ma Xiaoxue , an immigration consultant at Well Trend in Beijing, said the company had been consistently advising clients over the past two years to consider countries other than Canada.